Via Bryan Hoch, the Indians have claimed outfielder Chad Huffman off waivers. The Yankees designated Huffman for assignment just two days ago to make room on the roster for Royce Ring. The 25-year-old had a nice season in Triple-A Scranton (.339 wOBA) and a pretty awful showing with the big league team earlier in the year (.229 wOBA in 21 plate appearances), but as a defensively limited corner outfielder/first baseman, he really had no long-term chances in New York. I wish him the best in Cleveland.

According to more reports than I care to cite, former Yankees’ manager Joe Torre will step down as Dodgers’ manager after the season and hand the reigns off to former Yankee megastar Don Mattingly. Donnie Baseball has basically zero managerial experience at any level, but he was always considered a candidate to manage the Yanks at some point in the future. In the unlikely scenario that has the team looking for a replacement for Joe Girardi after the season, Mattingly is no longer an option.

Mattingly will get his managerial feet wet this offseason with the Phoenix Desert Dogs of the Arizona Fall League next month. Among the players on his roster: Yankee farmhands Austin Romine, Brandon Laird, Corban Joseph, George Kontos, and Craig Heyer. Please don’t break them.

Via Marc Carig, the Yankees have recalled Romulo Sanchez from Triple-A Scranton. As you probably remember, Romulo hit the disabled list in late-August with an apparent elbow injury, and we perhaps foolishly assumed he was done for the season. Anyway, I guess the elbow’s fine and Joe Girardi will have another option for low-leverage relief work. Sanchez made one appearance with the Yanks earlier in the year, throwing 3.2 scoreless innings at Fenway Park.

This week’s mailbag features some questions about pitching stats, top 100 prospect rankings, and potential replacement for Joe Girardi. If you want to send in a question, use the Submit A Tip box in the sidebar.

Anonymous asks: BRef updated their WAR calculation by adding park factor adjustments. As a result, CC leads both Felix and Liriano. In conversations about the CY race, we mostly talk about raw stats and do not talk much about the park factors. Does this change you guys’ mind about who should be CY?

No, not particularly. WAR is a great way to measure a player’s production, but it’s not the be all, end all. Felix Hernandez and Francisco Liriano not only benefit from their pitcher friendly home parks, but also because they play in weaker divisions than the AL East. It might make more of a difference if the three were close in terms of performance, but it’s clear CC Sabathia lags behind the other two. Let’s look:

Liriano clearly has the best peripheral stats of the bunch, and really it’s not even that close, but he’s thrown 47.1 fewer innings than Felix and 38.2 fewer than CC, which is a ton. That’s what, five or six starts worth? If it was five or ten innings, fine, but 40? Eek. Sabathia’s peripherals are the worst of the bunch, but the difference between his homer rate and Felix’s is negligible, and the same could be said when you look at their road stats (0.8 HR/9 for CC, 0.7 HR/9 for Felix). The Mariners’ ace obviously has a big advantage in FIP (.301 to .356) given the strikeout and walk rates.

I get the ballpark factor, but I think Felix has just been so absurdly good and it hasn’t mattered where he’s pitched. That’s up for debate and not for me to decide, but that’s my two cents.

Anonymous asks: You are allowed to remove one measuring statistic (such as RBI, Batting Average, UZR, FIP) from the public’s consciousness. In addition, you are allowed to make one statistic mainstream. Which one do you choose for both, and why?

I’d probably trade pitcher wins for FIP. A win doesn’t tell you anything, just that a starter completed at least five innings and left the game with a lead, regardless of size or how he actually pitched. FIP at least provides some context and removes the things the pitcher can’t control, which actually gives you an idea of how he pitched.

If wins were called something else, like say “times left with a lead,” perhaps they wouldn’t be so highly regarded. The term “win” absolutely has some connotations to it that can cloud judgement. Bartolo Colon was maybe the 20th best pitcher in baseball when he won the Cy in 2005, but he had those 21 wins. Just doesn’t make sense to reward a guy with a personal counting stat when his teammates do half the work, if not more.

Will asks: Can you see Montero, Romine, Betances, Brackman, and Banuelos all in the top 100 prospect ranking? If so, where?

Yes, I definitely think all five can crack just about any top 100 list. Montero is one of the five best prospects in the game, so he’ll be right up there. Even if someone feels like being particularly harsh about his defense and uncertain future position, the bat still makes him a top ten prospect. Anything lower than that and there’s some Yankee hate factoring in.

The pitchers are very tough to sort out because they’re all so close. Based on how I feel right now, Banuelos is the best prospect of the three, followed closely by Brackman and then Betances. Either way, they’re all legit 30-60 range pitching prospects, and while that seems like a large gap, it’s really not. The difference between the 30th best prospect and 60th best prospect on a typical top 100 list is very small and not worth getting upset over. What is important is that all three are not quite elite pitching prospects just yet, but they’re all very good and among the best in baseball.

Romine’s prospect standing has taken a bit of a hit this year because he struggled so much in the second half (.237/.292/.349 after June 1st, though he did finish strong and has played well in the playoffs), and even though we understand this is his first full season as an everyday catcher, that’s not a get out of jail free card. He’s still a good prospect and should comfortably slot in the 60-100 range. If you want me to be more specific, 70-80 sounds about right.

Anonymous asks: Next year if the Yankees don’t resign Joe Girardi, who do you think would the be best fit for the job?

Girardi’s future with the team is in question thanks to this latest and oh so ugly slump, though I’m almost certain he’ll be in the dugout running the team next year. But if not, if he’s instead in Chicago or the broadcast booth again or whatever, let’s look at some options to replace him.

I think the Yanks would prefer to replace him with someone familiar with how they do things, meaning someone either in the organization right now or someone who was in the recent past. Bench coach Tony Pena is an obvious candidate, and third base coach Robbie Thomson could receive consideration as well, though his lack of managerial experience at the MLB level works against him. Both have been linked to other managerial jobs recently. Triple-A Scranton coach Dave Miley has big league experience with the Reds and is certainly familiar not just with the “Yankee Way,” but also the players he’s coached (Brett Gardner, Phil Hughes, etc.) and worked with in Spring Training (all the vets, basically).

Don Mattingly’s name is sure to come up, but I’m pretty sure he’s going to take over for Joe Torre in Los Angeles after the season. Tony LaRussa’s contract is up in a few weeks but he should be a zero factor. He’s probably the worst-case scenario when it comes to a new manager. Padres’ first base coach Rick Renteria is generally considered to be one of the best managerial prospects out there, but he has no prior relationship with the Yanks or big league managerial experience. I really don’t know too much about potential managers beyond that, unfortunately.

In terms of traits, basically every manager needs to have patience and be able to command the respect of his players, but a Yankee manager needs absurd levels of patience and must be good with the media. If he’s not, it can get real ugly, real quick. You’re not going to find a perfect manager that does all of that, but you have to hope to get someone close to that.

Contrary to what baseball traditionalists might tell you, hitting .300 is not that important. There are more important things in baseball than getting a hit three times in every 10 official at-bats. Hitting for power and getting on base are equally important, and while they can be part of batting average they aren’t necessarily so. In other words, there are many ways to become a productive player, and hitting .300 is only one of them. Still, it’s an interesting feat that still carries some power in today’s game. It becomes even more interesting when an unsuspecting player reaches the plateau.

Nick Swisher hasn’t been anyone’s idea of a .300 hitter for a while now. At Ohio State he hit .299, .322, and .348, but once he hit the minors that average started to dip. He compensated by getting on base and hitting for power, but by 2005 it became clear that he wasn’t the kind of guy that would dunk a single over the second baseman’s head. Instead he either crushed the ball, struck out, or took his base. In his first full big league season more than half of his hits went for extra bases, and in 223 of his 522 plate appearances he either drew a walk, struck out, or hit for extra bases.

Swisher experienced a similar effect during his first year in the Bronx. Of his 124 hits, more than half went for extra bases and again nearly half of his plate appearances (288 of 607) resulted in a strikeout, walk, or extra base hit. He hit only .249, which drew the ire of some old school fans, but Swisher contributed greatly to the Yankees 103 wins. His ability to avoid making outs and his power made him a useful player, albeit not in the traditional mold. But this year we’ve seen something completely different.

It was evident early on that Swisher was going to be a different type of hitter this year. He started swinging earlier in the count and was lining pitchers over infielders’ heads for singles. He started hitting bleeders through the hole. He stopped taking so many walks. It’s not that Swisher stopped being so patient; he’s still 20th in the AL in pitches seen per plate appearance. But he is definitely looking early in the count for pitches he can drive. These don’t necessarily have to be meatballs, but simply pitches that he can hit on a line. It has worked so far, as he currently sports a .288 batting average.

A knee injury has kept Swish either out of the lineup or ineffective for most of September. He’s just 3 for 26* this month, dropping his average from .296 to its current .288. That will certainly hurt his chances at hitting .300. Health is obviously a priority over an arbitrary milestone, but it would still be nice to see Swish reach that this year. He doesn’t have much time left to make it up.

*Yeah, and 1 for 1 in walk-off opportunities.

Assuming he gets the weekend series off, he’ll have 12 games in which to add 12 points to his batting average. At 4 PA per game that’s 48 remaining, but let’s say 50 since there are plenty of games in which he’ll appear five times. He’s walking in 9.3 percent of PA so far, so let’s assume five walks the rest of the way. That’s 45 AB added to his current 507, so 552. With that many AB a player would need 166 hits to reach .300. Swisher currently has 146, so he’d need to go 20 for 45. Doing that would go a long way in the Yankees clinching a spot early, but it’s not very likely at all.

While .300 is all but unattainable, it shouldn’t dampen Swisher’s 2010 season. He was a productive player for the Yankees last year, but he’s been on a different level this year. He’s made enough contact that Girardi has been comfortable batting him second. He’s really fit in there, despite all the strikeouts. Last year we were still wondering who the Yankees starting right fielder would be in 2012; Swisher was thought a temporary player. But now it looks like he could be around for a while. I don’t think anyone is complaining about that.

It hasn’t, as we wrote yesterday, been the best of times for the Yankees lately. Mired in a 2-8 slump which has seen the team lost three extra-inning affairs and five one-run contests, the franchise hasn’t played baseball this frustrating since they went 3-15 to close out the 2000 season. Yet, the end is in sight.

Later tonight, A.J. Burnett and the Yankees will face off against Kevin Millwood and the Orioles, and thus the Yanks will begin the final tenth of their season. Only 16 games separate them from the end of the regular season, and the team is holding onto a six-game lead in the Wild Card while staring at a small 0.5-game deficit in the AL East. According to Baseball Prospectus, the Yanks’ Playoff Odds sit at 96.5 percent, and while stranger things have happened, the team is a near lock for October. Just how they’re going to do on the way there remains to be seen.

Over their next 16 games, the Yankees will face only their AL East teams. They play the Orioles three times, the Rays four times, the Red Sox six times and the Blue Jays three times. They don’t have to travel farther than Toronto, and seven of the final 12 are at home. Against these opponents, the Yanks are 31-24 this year, and if they can replicate that success, they should go 9-7 the rest of the way.

For the Yanks to win the American League East, though, they’re going to have to do better than that. Over their final 17 contests, Tampa Bay plays only one team over .500 — the Yankees. They host the 71-75 Angels this weekend before a four-game showdown in the Bronx next week. Seattle and Baltimore swing by Tampa Bay for six before the Rays play four against the Kansas City Royals during the last weekend of the season. Against those teams, the Rays are 24-15, and if they replicate that total, they’ll end the year with with a 10-7 record, finishing one game ahead of the Yankees. Talk about heartbreak.

The ultimate question then concerns the team’s ALDS opponents. Due to a late-season surge that saw them run roughshod over their AL Central compatriots, the Twins and the Yanks are currently tied for the second base record in the AL. Both teams are 5.5 games better than the Rangers, and the Twins seem destined to play the Wild Card team in the first round.

For many in New York, Minnesota’s success this year is a bit of a surprise. The Yanks went 4-2 against the Twins this year and haven’t had many problems downing Minnesota. How then did the Twins get there? Playing in the Central played no small role in that. The Twinkies are 42-20 against their division rivals and just 46-38 against everyone else. Francisco Liriano is a true Cy Young candidate who’s given up just four home runs in 178.1 innings this year, but the rest of their rotation is heavy on the Carl Pavano and Scott Baker and light on everyone else. As a team, they rely more on keeping the ball in the park than on blowing hitters away, but they do sport a top-three offense in the AL.

And so we hit the stretch drive with a road to October before us. The Yankees need to shake off their recent slump and finish strong. To win the division, they’ll have to take at least three of four from the Rays this week, and they ought to beat up on the Orioles. Of course, playing the Twins isn’t the worst first round match-up, but with bragging rights on the line, a division crown would be a nice prize. A solid run through the next two weeks would put this 2-8 play behind us, and we’ll start over come game 1 of the American League Division Series.